Black Wings: A story in 21XX
by Dark Lord Zenigame
Summary: After being dead for almost a century, the robot Mikael is rebuilt.
1. Default Chapter

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1

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"Come on and dig deeper, you lazy bastard!" a guy with long red hair ordered.

"Shut the hell up, I'm going this the best I can!" his associate, a mole-type Repliroid responded angrily.

Three Repliroids were in a mountainrange somewhere in California. Crimson, the red-haired one, had heard rumors a while back of an old scientist's lab being hidden in these mountains over a hundred years ago, and if looters hadn't already gotten to it, the prospective technological treasure hidden within would be incredibly useful.

It seemed that in these times, the biggest discoveries were always found in the ground, products of a golden age of roboticists. Light, Wily, Cossack... they were just the best known, but there were countless others whose works were just as impressive but didn't get the reputation that those three did.

No matter, that makes it all the more worthwhile. To discover an old laboratory of Thomas Light or Albert Wily, that's almost commonplace. Besides, their most important works had already been unearthed decades ago. But there were countless others whose research was never made public. The possibility of finding the work of one of these unknown geniuses was too tempting to pass up.

So, Crimson had gotten two of his comrades, a mole Repliroid named Digger Topsoil, (don't ask about the name) and a bodyguard-type called Sieg out here in the middle of nowhere in hopes of finding something to give to their master, the great Sigma.

"Hey, the rock in this part's getting kinda weird..." Digger said, still going.

"Wha? You serious? Aw, man... it'll be so sweet if we actually find something out here..." Crimson said giddily.

"...whatever. Just keep going and shut up. I'm only out here with you two because it might get me in good with the Master," Sieg chimed in.

"Hmph. You're no fun. Seig, just think of the possibilities! We might find anything out here!"

"Or we might be wasting out time in this hellhole."

"...God, you're a killjoy."

A few minutes later, the hum of Digger's drills was becoming a bit strained. The composition of the ground was changing, and not to something normal...

"What the..." Digger said, putting all his body weight into his arm drills.

"Oh, man! We might have actually found something!" Crimson was getting even more excited, and headed closer to Digger, trying to look in the ground...

"Christ. Will you get back? If he slips, those drills are going to go right through you." Sieg reached over to pull Crimson back, but then he lost his balance...

"Oh Jesus, we really found something!" Crimson shouted as the ground shook.

"SHIT!" Sieg screamed, as Digger's hole began cracking and spreading along the ground.

"MOMMY!!!!" Digger cried as the ground caved in beneath them, causing the three to fall over fifty feet onto a hard metal floor.

"GUAAAAAAA"

A half-hour later, Sieg managed to get Digger and Crimson back online. He had managed a flawless landing, but those two idiots had landed on their heads. He could probably manage to get around this weird place on his own, but he felt safer with them serving as shields.

"You two back to normal?"

"Yeah, thanks." Crimson said, brushing the dust out of his hair.

"My head hurts, but I'm fine." Digger said.

"Good. Now let's see if there's anything worth taking in this dump."


	2. Chapter 2

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2

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Broken monitors, a few robot parts strewn about... it seemed that this laboratory wasn't abandoned by its owner voluntarily. The few things that Crimson recognized as computers were completely trashed, and there was no way to salvage the data inside. But, as they trudged further inside, things looked less and less beat up. Finally, they reached a sealed door, of the type that was often seen in old Wily ruins.

"Stand back, you two. I'll get us through," Sieg said as he readied his beam saber.

"Wait, what if you break something inside? If this door's sealed, that probably means that the stuff in there isn't busted up," Crimson said.

"I'll be careful, now get back. If you're too close, you'll get it as bad as this door's about to."

"..." Spooked, Crimson hid behind Digger. With any luck, the mole's heavy armor would protect him if Sieg went overboard on his attack.

Sieg stood about five feet from the door, his sword held over his shoulder. "Yosh. Here we go..." He charged towards it, and... "DEMON WOLF BLITZ!!!!" Like lightning, his sword arced across the door, with twelve... forty... over a hundred individual slashes. Such an attack was worthy of the hero from which his name came from.

"And you wondered why I brought him along," Crimson remarked, elbowing Digger in the chest.

Completely scrapped, the door fell to the ground in pieces. The three mavericks headed inside the room, expecting to find something good...

"Wait a minute. Is that..."

"A kid?"

Resting on the floor in front of an intact computer, was a kid wearing dark blue armor. As they got closer, the noticed that he also had a pair of huge black wings, and he wasn't asleep, he seemed to be... dead.

"Well, Sieg. Is this a suitable payoff?"

"Hell yeah. Check him out to see if he can be reactivated."

"Okay..."

Crimson walked to the boy slowly, as if he was approaching a sleeping person. The first thing he looked at was the boy's angelic wings, covered in dust. Their feathers were light and seemed to be made of thin strips of the same metal as the boy's armor, painstakingly detailed with the veins that you'd expect to see in a bird's feathers. A lot of them were cracked and brittle, however...

Moving away from the wings, Crimson examined the boy's armor. It was dark blue and black with a design along the edges. A breastplate, shoulderpads, gauntlets and boots, his design wasn't all that different from the Repliroids of today. That was just at first glance, however. There were signs that this kid was in a merged state or something... and his armor was almost totally shattered in several places, along with the fact that he had a gaping hole in his stomach.

"I guess this is what did him in."

"Wow, really. Any retard could see that, now hurry up. I wanna see what's on those monitors," Sieg remarked impatiently.

"Hmph."

Checking the boy's vitals...there was no energy signature at all, his powercore was completely drained. Well, enough of that, he was going to try and boot up these computers...


	3. Chapter 3

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3

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BOOTUP

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Accessing: Terminal 27

Contents: Specifications, Data Log

"Great, I'm in!" Crimson shouted with joy.

"Get on with it already. I want to see who the hell this dump belonged to." Sieg said, getting annoyed with Crimson's outbursts.

"Okay, okay..."

Crimson pressed a few buttons, accessing the data log. A few pictures, a warning notice for something involving the government... Great. Here's what they'd been looking for.

"Okay, Sieg. This lab belongs to some guy named Takehiro Zeno. You heard of him?" Crimson asked.

"Nope." Sieg replied.

"Okay, then. It says here that he was a roboticist back in 20XX, and invented a whole shitload of stuff... prosthetics, artificial skin... hm."

"Go on..."

"Okay. It says here that his main research was to make a living, thinking robot."

"Bah. Everyone knows that Light was the first one to do that."

"Not from what it says here. His first success was made before Wily and Light's split... an android named 'Reiji.' He had advanced weaponry, and was completely sentient."

"...I think this guy's full of bullshit."

"Shut up and let me read this, Sieg. Okay... it says that Reiji was treated by Takehiro as a son, but he turned on him one day and tried to kill him. Doesn't say why."

"So this old guy made the first Maverick." Something about that was comforting to Sieg, finding out that that moron X wasn't the first advanced intelligence.

"Apparently. But Reiji was beaten by some guy named 'Blues,' who caused his AI to regress to a childlike state. Probably a defensive mechanism or something."

"Hm."

"Okay, it says that Takehiro kept him around after the incident... and he made another sentient android during this time, named Hiroaki."

"Another one? He go Maverick too?"

"Nope. Apparently, Reiji's old personality restored itself and he went Maverick again, and Hiroaki fought him... lost because of Reiji's support unit. After that, Reiji... killed Takehiro?"

"What? Then where does this dead kid come in?"

"This is really messed up... Okay, then Reiji left the old man's corpse with Hiroaki, and it says something about 'cheating death' here... he came back to life somehow."

"...the hell? What was this guy, anyways?"

"Okay... After that, Hiroaki left him, and he built a third android to make up for it. This one had a different AI than the other two, and was raised like a human baby... the AI matured in a year. This third one's name is Mikael. Okay, then there was some tournament, and... SHIT!"

"What?"

"The data's all corrupted here! Goddamn it..."

"Well, go to the next uncorrupted part!"

"Alright... blah blah blah... okay. Something about 'evil energy,' and then meeting Reiji again... and it stops here."

"Well, shit. Can you recover the corrupted part?"

"No, it's completely gone."

"Damn!" Annoyed, Sieg kicked a wall.

After a little fiddling with the console, Crimson switched to the tech specification part of the data. Upon accessing it, four pictures showed up of a robot with green armor and a faceplate.

"Okay, this one is 'ZEN-001,' Reiji. Outfitted with a plasma buster, dash engines, and a modular weapon system... he can use more weapons by loading them into his memory banks and altering his armor a bit. That's only for this first picture, though. The other three are upgrades he made for himself, and there's no info for them."

"Whatever. go to the next one."

"Okay..." Crimson pressed a button, and something completely different showed up. Pictures of a black dragon and what seemed to be a merge state for Reiji appeared on the screen. "Second is 'ZEN-001S,' Kurogasa. A support unit for Reiji... wow. This thing has several different modes of transformation, and a cloaking system... and an experimental propulsion that I've never seen..."

"Whatever. Go on."

"Alright, geez. You're a real ass sometimes."

He pressed a button again and two versions of a plain blue android appeared on the screen. Nothing special about this one, it looked rather weak.

"'ZEN-002,' Hiroaki. Variable weapon system, beam shield... nothing special here." He went to the next in the file, and... okay, this is what they were looking for. Several pictures of the kid who lay dead on the ground filled the screen, and Crimson read from the data.

"Alright, now we get somewhere." Sieg said, finally smiling.

"'ZEN-003,' Mikael. Oh, this is nice. Flame saber, an interesting flight system... beam shield... I'm downloading this to my personal memory banks." Crimson said, inserting a USB cable into the console.

"What for?" Digger asked.

"Well, if we're gonna rebuild this guy for Lord Sigma, we're gonna need his blueprints, right?


	4. Chapter 4

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4

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After a bit of downloading and shuffling around, Crimson managed to get Sieg to pick up Mikael's body and they teleported back to his personal laboratory.

Before getting infected, Crimson was a well-known Repliroid scientist. Always looking for something new, he and his bodyguard Sieg often got themselves in trouble. It was when they stumbled onto a Maverick uprising that Sieg got infected, passing it on to his boss. But things remained the same as they had always been, for some reason. Despite a blind loyalty to Sigma, they were the same two buddies that they'd always been.

And since Crimson's infection was never made public, they were able to live in the same manner as they had always lived, Crimson still having his advanced laboratory in the same area it had been.

"Ah, it's nice to be home..." Crimson said as he teleported in.

"Yeah, whatever. Where do you want me to put this guy?" Sieg said, still holding Mikael's body.

"Um... on that operating table over there."

"Okay."

Unceremoniously, Sieg dropped Mikael's body onto the table and quickly moved to brush the dust off his black armor.

"Hey, watch it! You might break something?" Crimson shouted angrily.

"What's there to break? He already has a fucking HOLE in his stomach, there's not much I could do to make it worse." Sieg snapped back.

"Ugh... just go and get me some of that new alloy they're making. I'm gonna need it to rebuild his armor."

"Whatever."

With that, Sieg teleported away. Crimson had no idea where Sieg would go to get the alloy, he was jsut glad to get him away for a change.

"Um... boss?" Digger, who had been ignored for a while, tapped him Crimson on the shoulder.

"What?"

"Uh, is there anything you need from me now?"

"No, you cxan go home now. I'll give you credit when I present this guy to Lord Sigma later."

"Okay, thanks!" Digger teleported away.

"Aleight, now to get him unmerged and out of his armor..."


	5. Chapter 5

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5

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After a little fiddling around, Crimson finally found a way to end Mikael's merge state. Though he also had to pull his support unit off because they'd been attached for so long, it went rather smoothly, with nothing breaking.

With a closer look, he recognized this falcon robot as unit ZEN-003S, or "Kagehisa." The blueprints stated that it was mainly used for reconnaissance when not serving as Mikael's wings, but it looked kind of different... Perhaps Mikael had given himself an upgrade like Reiji had done.

After placing Kagehisa on another table, Crimson went to take off Mikael's armor. Fortunately, it was easy to remove, and didn't shatter in his hands as he was expecting it to.

Now that that task was done, Crimson could get to repairing the internal damage...

"...the hell? This kid's designed exactly like a human!"

Crimson was shocked. Every Repliroid he'd encountered had at least some external mechanical parts, but this kid was different. He seemed to be composed entirely of human prosthetics.

Prosthetics was a field that hadn't progressed at all since the old times, as they had pretty much been perfected. Nearly every body part could be replaced with an exact robotic duplicate, even of a similar weight to the original part it was supposed to be emulating. No metal was used in them, instead a series of polymer "muscle fibers" surrounding a dense silicon skeletal structure, they were stronger than the originals, but couldn't be discerned from organic parts by anyone other than a professional.

To build a robot only using these parts... it was something he had never expected to see. It seemed that when Takehiro Zeno set out to create living robots, he wasn't kidding.

No matter, this wasn't a real problem. After gawking for an hour at the preciseness that Mikael's body was created in, Crimson started work on repairing the hole in his stomach. It was a large circular burn mark that extended from the bottom ribs to the pelvis, and fused a lot of Mikael's spine... A plasma shot, probably. Fortunately, he did have some human prosthetics from other projects, and would be able to repair this without much problems.

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A few hours later, Sieg came back, dumping a large roll of sheet metal in the workshop.

"I'm back! You want anything else?" he shouted.

"No, go and do whatever!" Crimson yelled from inside the operating room.

"Okay, fine!" Sieg shouted, going to his room and turning on the TV.

Ah, this was a true masterpiece. Crimson had completely restored Mikael's body, and even improved his internal shield and wing generators with more efficient wiring and improved power usage. Plus, he replaced his powercore with the newest model the Hunters had come up with, salvaged from a Hunter that Sieg killed.

"Eheh... Now the armor and support unit, and Master Sigma will be so pleased with us!" Crimson said giddily.

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It took a week to finish the repairs and upgrades on Kagehisa and Mikael's armor. Going from the original blueprints and the improvements he came up with, Crimson completely rebuilt the armor and Kagehisa's exterior out of the alloy that Sieg had brought in. It was still dark blue and black, but Crimson decided to add a few more powercores and other things, and an improved buster. Nothing but the best for this project.

In the end, the armor was more streamlined than before, and had a new shine to it. (Crimson made Sieg give it a wax job) He placed the armor on Mikael, initiated the manual merge sequence, and called Sieg down.

"This the moment of truth..."


	6. Chapter 6

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6

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"Captain! What's this supposed to mean!?"

In Maverick Hunter HQ, Captain, the first of a line of blandly-named Repliroid commander units, was being chewed out by a girl.

"Sarah, you know as well as I do that Repliforce is becoming very dangerous. We can't just sit here and wait for them to kill us all off," he said calmly.

"They haven't done anything yet, and you don't know if they even will!" she shouted.

Sarah was a mechanic in the Hunters. With long brown hair and glasses, she had gotten the attention of many Hunters, including the commander that she was screaming at. She had typical armor for a female noncombatant Repliroid, boots and gauntlets with a light breastplate over her chest, with a gray and dark red colorscheme.

"We can't take that risk. You know as well as I do that many innocent lives will be lost if they overcome us!" Captain was getting worked up.

"Innocents are going to die if you go ahead with this!" Sarah shouted, getting louder.

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't, huh?" Captain tried cracking a joke to calm her down, but it didn't work well...

"Ooh, I can't stand you! All this bureaucratic shit, that's why I'm considering quitting!"

"Hey, wait a minute..."

"No! This place is too screwed up, and I can't stand it anymore!"

"Sarah, please. We need all the help we can get, and there aren't too many mechanics with us. At least go and take a walk to clear your head before you decide, okay?"

"..."

Still fuming, Sarah stormed out of the large building. Captain didn't say anything to her, and let her go. Plus, he got a nice view...

"Stupid bastard... he only wants to get into my pants, that's why he wants me to stay..." she said to herself, wiping off her glasses.


	7. Chapter 7

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7

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"Hm. Impressive. Congratulations, Crimson. You're not a complete retard after all." Sieg said.

"Shut up. In addition to fixing him up, I also added a bunch of powercores. One in each of his arms for his shields, and another in his back for his flight system. And in his support unit, there are four..." Crimson recited the improved design from memory.

"Shut up and get this on with."

"Yeah, yeah..."

Crimson headed to a console, and pressed a few buttons. "Okay, then..."

"Wait. You didn't forget the virus, did you?"

"Hell no, that's the first thing I did after I repaired him. I'm not a moron, you know."

"Could've fooled me."

"Well, here we go."

He hit a switch on the console, and the lights flickered a bit, wires in Mikael's neck draining power from them in order to charge his powercores. Soon, that was done, and things went back to normal...

"That all?" Sieg asked.

"No, he should wake up any moment now..." Crimson replied, barely able to hold in his excitement.

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Anger.

All he felt was anger.

Pure, blissful rage, even stronger than he felt when they killed his father. It filled his body, returning his strength. He sat up, and opened his eyes... there they were. They were the cause of all this. The one with red hair and the one with black armor... they had the same aura that sparked his rage.

And for that, their lives would end.

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"Hey, he doesn't look right..." Sieg said, pulling Crimson back.

"It... it should be nothing. He's just disoriented from being woken up after so long, that's all."

Slowly, Mikael got off the table and stretched his wings. They felt different... No matter, he had a task to complete. Slowly, he turned to face those who would die...

"His eyes..." Sieg gasped.

"They weren't supposed to be that color..."

Mikael's eyes were red as blood, brighter than the hair from which Crimson's name was derived. They took in his surroundings, and glowed brightly...

"Stay back!" True to his programming, Sieg guarded Crimson.

"Mikael? We're your friends..."

Friends? They were no friends. No... a friend wouldn't have gotten this reaction and caused this incredible rage. They would pay for that...

"CRIMSON, GET OUT OF HERE!" Sieg screamed, readying his saber.

"But..."

Oh, they think they're going to run? No, that's not's how it's going to be. not at all...

Mikael engaged his dash thrusters, and charged towards Sieg at full speed. He couldn't even react, as Mikael knocked him to the ground and began punching him repeatedly.

"Oh my god... Sieg..." Crimson gasped.

Sieg wasn't moving anymore, his black armor covered in his own 'blood.' Finally, Mikael ripped into his chest where a human's heart would be, and pulled out his powercore. Wires were still attached, but Mikael ripped those all off and threw it at Crimson with the force of a bullet.

"Guh-"

Upon impact, it exploded, sending Crimson through a wall. Abandoning Sieg's corpse, Mikael followed through the hole that was just made.

"Wh...why would you do this? We meant you no harm..." Crimson was slumped against a wall, shuddering. If Sieg couldn't do anything, then he stood no chance.

Harm? They had done plenty of harm. And now this red-haired one would die as well...

Mikael stood in front of Crimson with his left arm outstretched. "Halation."

Like a cloud, specks of light gathered in front of his hand and then shot into Crimson's chest as a huge beam, melting all that it touched. His eyes watering, Crimson coughed out one last word.

"why?"


	8. Chapter 8

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8

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Sarah walked along the streets of Tokyo, seriously considering leaving her post in the Maverick Hunters. Things had gotten more and more corrupt recently, ever since the incident with Doppler. And now Repliforce says something about going independent, and everyone goes nuts...

Sarah was just a mechanic, so nothing she said would ever get through to that asshole Captain... unless she gave it up to him.

"ACK!" she shuddered at that thought, and swore never to think of doing something like that again. But still, she was expected to repair all the soldiers who got back from killing... and if she didn't agree with what they were doing, then she had no obligation to help them at all.

Yeah, that's right. By repairing the Hunters, she was basically condoning whatever they did. But most of them were just following orders, they had no control over what they were told to do... whatever she did, it would cause harm.

She was so deep in her thoughts, Sarah didn't notice the large gorilla and bear-type Repliroids who were tailing her...

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Kill.

Kill them all.

Mikael looked at his handiwork. The black-armored one was lying motionless on the ground in the other room, a pool of his 'blood' slowly spreading from under him. he was definitely dead.

And the red-haired one... his top half and bottom half were barely held together by a small strip of metal, all that remained of his chest armor. There was no way he could have survived that.

Sure that anyone else in the building would have been alerted by the screams, Mikael blasted a hole in a wall leading outside and flew up into the night sky.

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"Wh... what do you want?"

The bear held Sarah high in the air, hanging by her arm. This hurt, and she was scared, but she had no weapons...

"Why's a pretty girl like you wandering around here at an hour like this? There're all kinds around here. Mavericks, rapists, Maverick rapists..." the gorilla said.

Sarah's eyes opened wide.

"You... you wouldn't," she shuddered.

"Oh, we would," the gorilla said, licking his lips. "Me and my friend here haven't gotten any in so long, and then a cute girl with glasses like you wanders into our territory."

"But... that's..."

"Vile? Reprehensible? Wrong? I'm, sorry, miss, but we don't really care. You see, we're really, really horny, and you're a sweet little thing. But don't worry. You'll enjoy it after a while..." the bear said, bringing her closer.

"Yup. We're really big. I'm bigger, though," the gorilla bragged.

"No you aren't. I'm the-"

The bear was stopped mid-sentence to see a large, firey object protruding from his upper cheat. It then moved to the side, separating his head from his body.

"What the-"

No longer having a head to issue it commands, the bear's body went limp, dropping Sarah. She could have run away, but was too scared to, instead backing against a building.

"Oh my God..."

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Mikael was flying for a few minutes until he saw that same vile aura that the two weaklings had. One looked like a robotic bear and the other a large monkey, and they were harassing what looked like a scared girl.

Did she have the aura?

No, she was different. The other two would die, though...

He landed softly, a few blocks away from them. They were too busy harassing the girl, so they didn't notice him. Taking this opportunity, he dashed at the bear and stabbed him with his flame saber, making a clean cut and taking his head off.

The head fell but was still conscious, and the body went limp. the girl staggered away and leaned against a building... good. She wouldn't be in the way.

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"Oh God, oh God..."

Sarah was really scared now. The bear's head got cut off by someone who was obscured by the bear's large body, and the head was still talking...

"Goddamned motherfucker! Who the hell did something stupidassed like that?" it roared, before a large boot stomped on it, finally silencing it.

"Crusher! you killed him! Bastard!!!" the gorilla screamed something inaudible, punching the hidden attacker into plain vision.

Mikael was flung into the street, righting himself before he landed. That punch, though strong, didn't hurt at all. Maybe it was the new armor, or maybe it was the rage... no matter. This one would soon die as well.

"...A-an angel?" Sarah was speechless. This was the one who saved her? Beautiful dark blue and black armor with gold trim, two gigantic black wings, and a helmet with a three-pronged crest on the front... hiding most of his face, though she could tell he looked very young. And the hair... it streamed from the back of his helmet, light blue in color. Quickly, her fear turned into awe, she had seen nothing like him before.

"Graaah!!!!" The gorilla charged at Mikael at top speed, intending to impale him on the spikes on his shoulders. But Mikael just stood there...

"Chaos wall."

Mikael outstretched his hand, and a green energy flickered in front of him... it materialized into countless hexagonal tiles which formed a half-dome, completely blocking the gorilla. As he collided with it, a huge amount of electrical feedback fried his arm...

"GUAAAH!!!" the gorilla screamed in pain, clutching his limp arm. Before he could do anything else, Mikael punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground, and then ignited his saber...

"Wa-wait, please... I'm sorry..." he pleaded, but was ignored. Mikael raised the flaming sword over his head, and then swung downwards, cleaving the crying gorilla in two. The two halves hit the ground and then made a small explosion, charring the sidewalk.

His work done, Mikael went towards the girl, his eyes still glowing red. he grabbed her shoulder, and then...

...passed out.


	9. Chapter 9

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9

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"..."

Sarah was speechless. This angel Repliroid came out of nowhere and saved her from being raped, and then collapsed...

What was he about to do when he grabbed her? Kill her as brutally as he did those two Mavericks? Tell her to stay out of this bad neighborhood? It didn't matter, she was going to bring him back to Hunter HQ with her. He couldn't be left like this in the middle of the sidewalk, someone might try to... ugh.

"What the hell's wrong with me?"

These disturbing thoughts were getting to her, maybe it was because of all this stress. But that wasn't important now, she had to get the hell out of here before someone else showed up...

Activating a sequence in one of her gauntlets, Sarah teleported away, holding the unconscious angel.

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The Repliforce issue, trying to get laid... Captain had lots of problems. But they could all be washed away with that magic drink... Scotch. Hot damn, he loved scotch. Didn't even have to be that drink in particular, any alcohol would do.

In hopes of getting his ass plastered, Captain headed out of the building to his favorite bar...

...when Sarah teleported right in front of him, holding some kid with wings.

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Great. After an experience like that, this bastard's face was the last thing she wanted to see. But help was help...

"...Sarah? What the hell happened, and who's that guy?" Captain asked.

"I... I don't know. I was out walking and got attacked by two Mavericks, but this guy showed up and retired them both." She was still shaken from her ordeal.

"Why's he unconscious? He get hurt saving you or something?"

"No, he just collapsed after the fight. I don't know who he is, or why he saved me..."

"Okay, then. Where did this happen?"

"I don't remember... just trace my teleport."

"Okay. You get to the infirmary, and I'll get someone to take him..."

It seemed that Captain wouldn't get to drink himself into sweet stupor any time soon... but that didn't matter. Someone tried to get Sarah, and she was his claim. Those damned Mavericks... they'd better be dead, or he'll make them wish they were...

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"Okay, you're clean. That was quite a scare, wasn't it?" a nurse said to Sarah.

"Yeah..." she looked to the ground.

The infirmary was a place that Sarah didn't go in for checkups often, she was usually the one giving them. But protocol was protocol, and everyone who came in contact with a Maverick had to be checked thoroughly for traces of the Maverick Virus. She was clean, but what about that kid...

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Mikael was lying on an operating table, his armor taken off and Kagehisa detached from him. This was all a precaution, as the Hunters had no ideas who he was or where he came from... He had no trace of infection, but he might be of the "old school" Mavericks...

"Well, Lifesavor, what's up with this kid?" Captain asked.

"I honestly don't know. His systems are clean, but his armor is a lot different from anything I've seen... along with his support unit merge. And his body's designed to be an exact replica of that of a human."

"Wha?"

"Yes. I've checked him thoroughly, and his body's composed of human prosthetics. There're other mechanical parts inside his forearms and back, but other than that, he's indistinguishable from a human."

"Maybe a infiltration-type Repliroid?"

"It's possible... but his programming's completely different from what I'm used to. He might even be.."

"A Relic?"

"It's possible."

"Relic" was the term for robots who weren't based on Repliroid technology, straying from Light's design. Almost all of them had been found in hidden labs, or survived over the years on their own. The Maverick Hunters tried to keep tabs on them, but their numbers were growing... some joining the Hunters, others trying to lead normal lives, and still others going Maverick.

"God, I hope not. We have more than enough of those guys here, I don't need any more."

"Sir, they're really no different from us..."

"Bah. Coming up in here with all their 'lost technology,' acting all high and mighty... that asshole in Special Ops is more than enough for me, thanks."

"Whatever you say." Lifesavor sighed, there was no stopping Captain when he went on one of his tirades.

"Well, tell me if you find anything out. I have a beer run to make."

"Yes, sir."

With that, Captain left the room, and... ran into Sarah.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Has that kid woken up yet?"

"Nope, nothing yet. Hey, I'm going out for a while, you wanna..."

"No."

Shot down yet again.

"You know where I'll be if you change your mind..." he headed down the hall.

"What an asshole." Sarah said, walking into Lifesavor's office.

"Oh, hello. Sarah. You feeling okay?"

"Yeah, they didn't get a chance to do anything to me."

"That's good to hear. I suppose you came in here to check in on your hero here..."

Sarah began blushing, and smacked Lifesavor in the back of the head.

"Please, no bad jokes today. It's been a rough night."

"Sorry about that."

"So, how is he?"

"Still hasn't woken up. I'm surprised he was able to take down two large Repliroids so easily... he looks no stronger than a human."

"Well, he did it. Mind if I hang around here for a while?"

"No, it's nice to have a pretty face in here that doesn't belong to a corpse."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, you know that," Sarah said, her eyes narrowing.

"Eheh, can't say I didn't try." Lifesavor smiled and sweatdropped... or the closest thing to it he was capable of doing.

---------------

::Guh, where am I?::

He'd been asleep for so long, and when he woke up, he was even more enraged than he was at the time of his death. Why did that happen?

His body... felt light. Kagehisa. Where's Kagehisa? He didn't feel that familiar presence in his mind anymore... did something happen? No, if he was dead, then he'd know...

Time to wake up.

---------------

On the operating table, unnoticed, two large green eyes opened and saw the world in its correct colors for the first time in almost a century.


End file.
